Web hackers and TV Mass

This blog was beseiged by hackers this week,. I didn’t have time to properly defend it, so I locked it down instead, which has prevented me from easily updating.

It could be worse. A priest friend of mine had his Catholic youth website successfully hacked this week. The website is still up, but many of the links are unusable. Here’s a screen grab of the damaged parts of the site:

The splash screen is accompanied by an Arabic-sounding chant, which is really quite melodious (albeit ominous). You can see what I mean by clicking this link. That’s not my friend’s site — I’ll keep that one anonymous — but another site afflicted by the same hack.

I told him he should be flattered. For a website to attract the attention of hackers, it has to get good traffic. That’s not very consoling, however, when you’re faced with the task of rebuilding a website. If they infiltrated his database, I think he’ll have to start from scratch.

On a lighter note, I’m on TV again this Sunday and next. I’m not given to self-promotion, but I received complaints last time that I didn’t inform (or forewarn) readers. I might have left it a little late, but here it is. If you can’t sleep tomorrow morning, you know what to view: Mass For You At Home, Channel 11, 5:30am Sundays.